The Shaikhdom of Kuwait

Abstract

A TRAVELLER in the Persian Gulf who happened to spend some time in Kuwait in I953 thanked his host on leaving for giving him a 'ringside seat for the Creation'. His metaphor conveys the vigour with which the Kuwaitis have set about using their new wealth from oil to transform the face of their town. In a few years this money will, if present plans mature, alter the face of their desert also, turning it from brown and waterless to green and irrigated. Inevitably, changes so sudden are confronting them with social and economic problems that were unknown to a community of fishermen, boat-builders, and traders. How are they to be sure of timing their innovations so that one does not outstrip the others that should go with it? How are they, while moving so fast, to avoid tremendous fluctuations in the labour market? How is a community in which the Shaikh's word is law to accommodate young men who can now afford to go to British, American, or Egyptian schools and universities and who, on return, at once question the feudal system? Money in quantities undreamed of, flowing from the cornucopia of an oil company, has brought great blessings to this community of-in I95Iabout Ioo,ooo people; there are over 200,000 today. But with the benefits go problems that are only now becoming noticeable to local inhabitants. Kuwait, before the Creation, was a small, sturdy-looking town in a featureless desert set on the southern shore of a fine bay. Opposite, on the north shore, a line of sandstone hills breaks the desert monotony; beyond this lies the tangle of shallow creeks that continue till the Shatt al-Arab river mouth. Kuwait is about 75 miles as the crow flie's from both Abadan and Basra. Its assets are a brisker, windier climate than that of the shallow anchorages farther south, and its 'tolerable roadstead' which, wrote the traveller Palgrave in I863, might serve the Arabian hinterland 'like Trieste for Austria'.'. His hope, which more than once in Kuwait's history looked like being fulfilled, has always been thwarted. It is not an old dwelling place; having no fresh water whatsoever, it attracted only tough folk so keen to get away from their neighbours that they were ready to fetch water by boat from the Shatt al-Arab; these began to settle on the town's present site perhaps two hundred and fifty years ago. Since about I756, it has been ruled and owned by one family, the al-Subah, of warrior stock, who provided security and were paid for this service in gifts, customs duties, and imprests; the Shaikhly family provides for the succession by agreement between its members as to which